BY CAROL GREITZER | Theodore (Theo) Bikel, a versatile actor and singer who died July 21 at the age of 91, probably first came to the attention of most Americans when he created the role of Baron von Trapp in the Broadway production of “The Sound of Music,” playing opposite Mary Martin. Bikel was living read more here »

BY ELANA RABINOWITZ | The first rap album ever to hit number one was birthed in Brooklyn. From three Jewish guys — how was that possible? I grew up in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, way before any hipsters burrowed there. The gritty outer borough, where my suburban Jewish camp friends didn’t want to visit, read more here »

BY ALFIE MCCOURT | In 2008, during the presidential election campaign, I remarked that the Clintons, in facing Barrack Obama, an African-American and a candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination, had found themselves between a rock and a hard place. (“You mean a Rack and a hard place,” said my friend Jimmy). A short time read more here »

BY DAVID SOBEL | Last month I wrote about my experience busking in Washington Square for The Villager so as to provide an insider’s perspective on the park’s current “noisy music” debate. I was surprised by how pleasant the experience was. I played my tenor saxophone with a folk guitarist, Park Enforcement Patrol officers read more here »

BY DAVID SOBEL | On the Fourth of July, I arrived in Washington Square Park with my tenor saxophone in hand, but I wasn’t just another busker. I was there to get an insider’s account of the ongoing music noise debate for The Villager. A 44-year-old guy from the Upper East Side, I hadn’t played read more here »

BY MARIANNE LANDRE GOLDSCHEIDER | The Catholic Worker is many things to many people. Its founders were Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. Dorothy Day became a well-known figure. Today she is being considered for canonization as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. Her memoir, “The Long Loneliness,” is still in print. Born in Brooklyn read more here »

BY DOTTIE WILSON | Father’s Day is a yearly reminder of the reprehensible and shameful character flaw I have in the eyes of others: i.e., you are a horrible person if you don’t like said sacred figurehead. (I understand there’s even a religious commandment about such devotion.) Forever branded by my honest yet unpopular opinion of read more here »

BY SHARON WOOLUMS | For years, and especially recently, Village business owners have looked out their windows in despair wondering what their future would be. Decades of real estate speculation, fueling exorbitant rents that only big banks and franchises can pay, have wreaked havoc on the commercial rental market, destroying for many the American Dream. read more here »

BY MINERVA DURHAM | For years I was curious about the four sisters of Matthew McGuigan, the redheaded Irish super at 226 Lafayette St. in Soho. Were they graceful and charming, I wondered? Redheads, like him? Did they have, in the words of Thackeray, “something better than beauty?” Matthew also had two brothers, but I didn’t wonder about them. Matthew’s parents met read more here »

BY AUDREY SMALTZ | I moved into my apartment at 15 W. 55th St. in 1977. That building has been my home and its tenants have been my neighbors for more than 35 years. For most of those years, everyone in the building knew one another and there was a genuine sense of safety and community. Now, things read more here »